Medicine: Light on Leukemia

Blood, for the most part, is a mixture of white cells, red cells and fluid serum. Leukemia, an invariably fatal form of cancer, is a disease in which the patient's blood becomes overloaded with certain types of white cells. For 100 years or more, doctors have accepted the theory that leukemia is caused by an unknown factor which goads the body into riotous overproduction of white cells. Last week, researchers at the University of California offered a new explanation.

Like all cellular life, the white cells of the blood are constantly "being born" and "dying." Some body mechanism, still unidentified, must constantly...

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